flynas revenues increase 46%, passenger number up 26% in H1 2023

As passenger numbers increased 26% to about 5 million passengers and seat capacity grew 19%, boosted by upscaling fleet by 19% to 51 aircraft, according to the semi-annual performance report.

Bander Almohanna, CEO and Managing Director of flynas, said: "We are proud of flynas performance during the first half of 2023. This industry-leading operational performance will keep us on track to achieve our full-year targets as we continuously expand our network, create new partnerships, and enhance our operational capacities."

Almohanna said that the growth figures and the outstanding performance by flynas come as a result of the growth and expansion plan launched by the company since the beginning of the year. He added, "We launched 10 new destinations and routes during this summer and became the first Saudi air carrier to launch direct flights from Riyadh and Jeddah to Sphinx International Airport in Cairo, and in partnership with the Air Connectivity Program, we started operating direct flights from King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah to Bishkek and Osh in Kyrgyzstan and Almaty in Kazakhstan, and increasing frequency of weekly flights to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan".

"During the Hajj season this year, flynas transported more than 100,000 pilgrims from 13 countries and boosting our operational capacity, we took delivery in early May of our fourth wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft, and welcomed two Airbus aircraft of the next-generation A320neo, representing the third batch of 19 new aircraft of that model to be delivered in 2023, just a few days after we signed an agreement with Airbus, during Paris Air Show, to purchase another 30 new A320neo aircraft, as part of our plans to upscale our fleet", said Almohanna.

Concerning the services provided to the travellers, Almohanna added: "From January, flynas provided passengers on board its flights with the privilege of applying through its website for a 4-day transit visa to enter the Kingdom once their tickets are issued following the terms and requirements of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' system, in conjunction with the launch of our leisure and holidays platform nasholidays.com in a new look, enabling our guests to personalise their traveling package and design ideal holidays through a single window and a seamless experience."

"Thanks to our dedicated staff, we have advanced to a globally prominent position among the top four low-cost airlines in the world, according to the Skytrax organisation, which is the most important reference for performance assessment in the aviation industry. We will continue working to keep our leading position and reinforce it for the long run in order to maintain our strong growth, consolidating our ability to participate in achieving objectives of the National Civil Aviation Strategy to reach 330 million passengers and 100 million tourists, and increase the number of international destinations linked to the Kingdom to more than 250 destinations by 2030.”